1493 Nov 12, Christopher
Columbus discovered the island of Redonda during his second
expedition. It was about 34 miles WSW of Antigua.
(www.redonda.org/redonda.html#1869)

1865 Matthew Dowdy Shiell, a
sea-trader, landed on an uninhabited part of Redonda Island, part of
Antigua and Barbuda, and declared it his kingdom. Title passed out
of the Shiell family in 1947.
(Econ, 12/24/05,
p.85)(www.redonda.org/redonda.html#1869)

1951 The Antigua Labor Party
(ALP) gained power. Vere Bird began dominating local politics and
continued to do so, except for one 5-year year, until 1994, when his
son took over the family firm.
(Econ, 12/4/04, p.38)(Econ, 2/28/09, p.42)

1985-1987 John Fitzgerald, an admitted
money-launderer, deposited some $7 million into 2 banks. In 1993 he
pleaded guilty to money laundering.
(WSJ, 11/2/98, p.A27)

1994 Lester Bird, head of the
Antigua Labor Party, was elected after his father, PM Vere Bird,
retired.
(SFC, 3/11/99, p.A11)

1994 The Swiss-American Bank
and the Swiss-American national Bank turned over drug money from
John Fitzgerald to the government of Antigua.
(WSJ, 11/2/98, p.A30)

1998 Sep 15-Oct 1, Hurricane
Georges caused 602 deaths in the Caribbean and four in the United
States. The storm hit the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto
Rico, Antigua, Guadeloupe, St. Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla and British
and U.S. Virgin Islands before striking Alabama, Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Florida.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)

1998 Sep 22, Hurricane Georges
hit the Dominican Republic and at least 12 people were killed. Three
people were killed in St. Kitts, 2 in Antigua and 4 in Puerto Rico.
(SFC, 9/23/98, p.A10)

1999 Mar 9, The Antigua Labor
Party won the elections and Prime Minister Lester Bird extended his
rule for another 5 years.
(SFC, 3/11/99, p.A11)

1999 Mar, The US Treasury Dept.
issued an advisory to US banks to scrutinize all financial
transactions into or out of Antigua for money laundering. Antigua
had recently adopted new money-laundering prevention measures but
they were not considered sufficiently strong by the US.
(WSJ, 4/27/99, p.A19)

1999 R. Allen Stanford, a Texas
developer and intíl. banker, became a citizen of Antigua. His
financial dealings included major loans to the government.
(WSJ, 3/5/02, p.A1)(Econ, 12/4/04, p.38)

2004 Mar 24, Antigua PM Lester
Bird (66) conceded defeat to labor activist Baldwin Spencer in
general elections marked by corruption charges, ending a family
dynasty that has dominated Antigua and Barbuda for more than half a
century. Spencer soon found the coffers empty.
(AP, 3/24/04)(Econ, 12/4/04, p.38)

2004 Aug 23, Antigua and
Barbuda's prime minister and American officials signed an agreement
extending the lease of the U.S. Air Force base in the Caribbean
country until 2008.
(AP, 8/23/04)

2005 Oct 28, Hazelyn Francis
(66), the president of the Antigua and Barbuda senate, was raped
during an assault in her home.
(AP, 10/31/05)

2006 Antigua knighted financier
R. Allen Stanford, who served as a free-handed lender to the
government. Stanford had arrived in the late 1980s after authorities
in Montserrat closed his offshore bank.
(Econ, 2/28/09, p.42)

2006 The population of Antigua
was around 75,000.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.30)

2007 Jan 3, Mike Perham (14), a
British teenager, became the youngest person to sail solo across the
Atlantic Ocean, reaching the Caribbean island of Antigua after a
six-week voyage. Perham was trailed by his father in another boat.
(AP, 1/3/07)

2008 Jul 27, In Antigua
newlyweds Benjamin and Catherine Mullany, both 31, were attacked
inside their cottage at the Cocos Hotel resort in the island's
southwest. Both were shot in the head. Catherine was killed. A
comatose Benjamin was flown back to Britain where he was pronounced
dead on August 3. On August 18 a 20-year old man and 17-year-old
male were taken to a magistrate court in St. John's and were charged
with murder, robbery and receiving stolen goods. The trial of Avie
Howell and Kaniel Martin began June 1, 2011.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/4/08)(AP, 8/19/08)(AP, 6/2/11)

2009 Feb 18, In Antigua panicky
depositors were turned away from Stanford International Bank and
some of its Latin American affiliates, unable to withdraw their
money after US regulators accused Texas financier R. Allen Stanford
of perpetrating an $8 billion fraud against his companies'
investors.
(AP, 2/19/09)

2009 Mar 12, Antiguan voters,
worried by the fallout from an alleged $8 billion fraud scheme
involving R. Allen Stanford, decided between the ruling party and
the one that welcomed the Texas financier to the Caribbean nation
nearly two decades ago. Preliminary results indicated that Antigua's
ruling party will stay in power, but with a narrower margin in
parliament.
(AP, 3/12/09)(AP, 3/13/09)

2009 May 15, A court-appointed
liquidator reported that the Antigua offshore Stanford International
Bank, at the center of an alleged Ponzi scheme by a wealthy Texas
businessman, had a $6 billion shortfall between assets and
liabilities, confirming fears that investors will likely get little
of their money back.
(AP, 5/15/09)

2009 Aug 4, Antigua's highest
mountain, Boggy Peak, officially became "Mount Obama" as the small
Caribbean nation celebrated the American president on his birthday
and saluted him as a symbol of black achievement.
(AP, 8/4/09)(SFC, 8/5/09, p.A2)

2009 Sep 7, Six American
tourists in Antigua were charged with assault and malicious damage
after refusing to pay a cab fare on Sep 4 they thought was excessive
and later scuffling with police officers. They were released on
$5,000 bail each. Their Carnival Cruise Lines ship left without
them. On Oct 3 five New York tourists pleaded guilty to fighting
with plainclothes police officers after disputing the $100 cab fare.
Prosecutors dropped charges against a sixth tourist.
(AP, 9/8/09)(AP, 10/3/09)

2009 The population of Antigua
& Barbuda was around 85,000.
(Econ, 2/28/09, p.42)

2010 Jan 19, Nina Nilssen (29),
a graduate student at San Francisco State Univ., was stabed to death
during a port call in Antigua. On Jan 29 Suspect Tishara Daniel (24)
was arrested and confessed to fatal stabbing of Nina Nilssen.
(SFC, 1/25/10, p.A1)(AP, 1/31/10)

2010 Mar 31, In Antigua a judge
ruled Wednesday that PM Baldwin Spencer and two other lawmakers were
improperly elected last year, a decision potentially threatening the
governing party's narrow hold on power in this Caribbean country.
Earlier this month, Spencer's government announced that the
International Monetary Fund agreed to lend the country $124 million
over three years.
(AP, 3/31/10)

2011 Dec 6, Antigua-based LIAT
airline said all of its pilots have called in sick, likely
disrupting all flights. The pilots were protesting the firing of a
captain for undisclosed reasons.
(AP, 12/6/11)

2012 Mar 25, Gabor Rakonczay
arrived in Antigua after canoeing across the Atlantic Ocean in 76
days. He had left Lagos, Portugal, on December 21, 2011.
(SFC, 3/27/12, p.A2)

2013 Oct 14, Antigua and
Barbuda PM Baldwin Spencer said citizenship will be sold to intíl.
investors. Applications were already being accepted.
(SFC, 10/15/13, p.A2)

2014 Jun 13, Gaston Browne
became the new prime minister of the two-island nation of Antigua
and Barbuda after his Labor Party won 14 of 17 seats in the
Parliament.
(AP, 6/14/14)

2014 Nov 29, Antigua &
Barbuda PM Gaston Brown appointed actor Robert De Niro as special
economic envoy of the twin-island nation in the eastern Caribbean.
The appointment came after De Niro signed a memorandum of agreement
a day earlier for a $250 million hotel investment in Barbuda.
(AP, 11/29/14)

2015 Oct 6, US authorities
charged John Ashe, a former president of the UN General Assembly,
billionaire Macau real estate developer Ng Lap Seng (68) and four
others, for engaging in a wide-ranging corruption scheme. John Ashe,
the UN ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda, was the UN president in
2013.
(Reuters, 10/6/15)

2015 Oct 17, Venezuela
announced that its state-owned oil company will buy a 25 percent
stake in West Indies Oil Co. and that it will establish a regional
bank with the Antigua and Barbuda government to fund a new resort.
(AP, 10/17/15)